19
May 804 A.D. Alcuin,
Charlemagne’s Scholar, Dies.
Burns, James.
"Alcuin." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1907. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01276a.htm. 23
Apr 2014.
(Alhwin, Alchoin; Latin Albinus, also Flaccus).
An
eminent educator, scholar, and theologian born about 735; died 19 May, 804. He came of noble
Northumbrian parentage, but the place of his birth is a matter of dispute. It
was probably in or near York. While still a mere child, he entered the cathedral school founded at that place
by Archbishop Egbert. His aptitude, and piety early attracted the
attention of Aelbert, master of the school, as well as of the
Archbishop, both of whom devoted special attention to his instruction. In
company with his master, he made several visits to the continent while a youth,
and when, in 767, Aelbert succeeded to the Archbishopric of York, the duty of directing the school naturally devolved
upon Alcuin. During the fifteen years that followed, he devoted himself to the
work of instruction at York, attracting numerous
students and enriching the already valuable library. While returning from Rome in March, 781, he met Charlemagne at Parma, and was induced by
that prince, whom he greatly admired, to remove to France and take up residence
at the royal court as "Master of the Palace School". The school was kept at Aachen most of the time, but
was removed from place to place, according as the royal residence was changed.
In 786 he returned to England, in connection,
apparently, with important ecclesiastical affairs, and again in
790, on a mission from Charlemagne. Alcuin attended the
Synod of Frankfort in 794, and took an
important part in the framing of the decrees condemning Adoptionism as well as in the
efforts made subsequently to effect the submission of the recalcitrant Spanish prelates. In 796, when past his
sixtieth year, being anxious to withdraw from the world, he was appointed by Charlemagne Abbot of St. Martin's at
tours. Here, in his declining years, but with undiminished zeal, he set himself to
build up a model monastic school, gathering books and
drawing students, as before, at Aachen and York, from far and
near. He died 19 May, 804. Alcuin
appears to have been only a deacon, his favourite
appellation for himself in his letters being "Albinus, humilis
Levita". Some have thought, however, that he became a priest, at least during his
later years. His unknown biographer, in describing this period, says of him, celebrabat omni die missarum solemnia
(Jaffé, "Mon. Alcuin., Vita," 30). In one of his last letters Alcuin
acknowledged the gift of a casula,
or chasuble, which he promises to
use in missarum solemniis
(Ep. 203). It is probable that he was a monk, and a member of the Benedictine Order, although this also
has been disputed, some historians maintaining that he was simply a member of
the secular
clergy,
even when he exercised the office of abbot at Tours.
Educator and scholar
Of
his work as an educator and scholar it may be said, in a general way, that he
had the largest share in the movement for the revival of learning which
distinguished the age in which he lived, and which made possible the great intellectual renaissance of three
centuries later. In him Anglo-Saxon scholarship attained to its widest
influence, the rich intellectual inheritance left by Bede at Jarrow being taken
up by Alcuin at York, and, through his
subsequent labours on the Continent, becoming the permanent possession of
civilized Europe. The influences
surrounding Alcuin at York were made up chiefly of elements from two sources, Irish and Continental. From
the sixth century onward Irishmen were busy founding schools as well as churches
and monasteries all over Europe; and from Iona, according to Bede, Aidan and other Celtic
missionaries bore the knowledge of the classics, along
with the light of the Christian faith, into Northumbria.
Both Aldhelm and Bede had Irish teachers. Celtic
scholarship appears, however, to have entered only remotely and indirectly into
Alcuin's training. The strongly Roman cast which characterized the School of Canterbury, founded by Theodore
and Hadrian, who were sent by the Pope to England in 669, was naturally
reproduced in the School of Jarrow, and from this, in turn, in the School of
York. The influence is discernible in Alcuin, on the religious side, in his
devoted adhesion to Roman, as distinguished from particular local or national,
traditions, as well as, in an intellectual way, in the fact that
his knowledge of Greek, which was a
favourite study with Irish scholars, appears to
have been very slight.
An
important feature of Alcuin's educational work at York was the
care and preservation, as well as the enlargement, of its precious library. Several times he
journeyed through Europe for the purpose of
copying and collecting books. Numerous pupils, too, gathered around him, from
all parts of England and the continent. In
his poem "On the Saints of the Church of York",
written, probably, before he took up his residence in France, he has left us a
valuable description of the academic life at York, together with a list
of the authors represented by its catalogue of books. The course of studies
embraced, in the words of Alcuin, "liberal studies and the holy
word", or the seven liberal arts comprising the trivium and the quadrivium, with the study
of Scripture and the Fathers for those more advanced. A feature of the school that deserves mention
was the organization of studies on the modern plan, the students being
separated into classes, according to the subjects and divisions of subjects
studied, with a special teacher for each class. But it was when he took charge
of the Palace School that the abilities of Alcuin were most conspicuously
shown. In spite of the influence of York, learning in England was declining. The
country was a prey to dissensions and civil wars, and Alcuin perceived
in the growing power of Charlemagne and his eagerness for
the development of learning an opportunity such as even York, with all its
pre-eminence and scholastic advantages, could not afford. Nor was he
disappointed. Charlemagne counted on education to complete the work
of empire-building in which he was engaged, and his mind was busy with educational projects. A literary
revival, in fact, had already begun. Scholars were drawn from Italy, Germany, and Ireland, and when Alcuin, in
782, transferred his allegiance to Charlemagne, he soon found
surrounding him at Aachen, in addition to the
youthful members of the nobility he was called upon to instruct, a band of
older learners some of whom were ranked among the best scholars of the time.
Under his leadership the Palace School became what Charles had hoped to make
it, the centre of knowledge and culture for the
whole kingdom, and indeed for the whole of Europe. Charlemagne himself, his queen,
Luitgard, his sister Gisela, his three sons and two daughters became pupils of
the school, an example which the
rest of the nobility were not slow to imitate. Alcuin's supreme merit as an
educator lay, however, not merely in the training up of a generation of educated men and women, but above all, in
inspiring with his own enthusiasm for learning and teaching the talented youths
who flocked to him from all sides. His educational writings, comprising
the treatises "On Grammar", "On Orthography", "On
Rhetoric and the Virtues", "On Dialectics", the
"Disputation with Pepin", and the astronomical treatise entitled
"De Cursu et Saltu Lunae ac Bissexto", afford an insight into the
matter and methods of teaching employed in the Palace School and the schools of the time generally,
but they are not remarkable either for originality or literary excellence. They
are mostly compilations — generally in the form of dialogues drawn from the
works of earlier scholars, and were probably intended to be used as textbooks
by his own pupils.
Alcuin,
like Bede, was a teacher rather
than a thinker, a gatherer and a distributor rather than an originator of knowledge, and in this respect,
it is plain to us now, the bent of his genius responded perfectly to the
imperative intellectual need of the age, which
was the preservation and the representation to the world of the treasures of knowledge inherited from the
past, long buried out of sight by the successive tides of barbarian invasion. Disce ut doceas (learn in
order to teach) was the motto of his life, and the supreme value he attached to
the office of teaching is recognizable in his admonition to his disciples that
the idle youth would never become a teacher in his old age (Qui non discit in pueritia, non docet in
senectute, Ep. 27). Alcuin was eminently qualified to be the
schoolmaster of his age. Although living in the world and occupied much with
public affairs, he was a man of singular humility and sanctity of life. He had an
unbounded enthusiasm for learning and a tireless zeal for the practical work
of the class-room and library, and the young men of
talent whom he drew in crowds around him from all parts of Europe went away inspired
with something of his own passionate ardour for study. His warm-hearted and
affectionate disposition made him universally beloved, and the ties that bound
master and pupil often ripened into intimate friendship that lasted through
life. Many of his letters that have been preserved were written to his former
pupils, more than thirty being addressed to his tenderly loved disciple Arno, who
became Archbishop of Salzburg. Before he died Alcuin
had the satisfaction of seeing the young men whom he had trained engaged all
over Europe in the work of
teaching. "Wherever", says Wattenbach, in speaking of the period that
followed, "anything of literary activity is visible, there we can with certainty count on finding a
pupil of Alcuin's." Many of his pupils came to occupy important positions
in Church
and State
and lent their influence to the cause of learning, as the above-mentioned Arno,
Archbishop of Salzburg; Theodulph, Bishop of Orléans; Eanbald, Archbishop of York; Adelhard, the cousin
of Charles, who became Abbot of (New) Corbie, in
Saxony; Aldrich, Abbot of Ferrières, and Fridugis, the successor of
Alcuin at Tours. Among his pupils also
was the celebrated Rabanus
Maurus,
the intellectual successor of Alcuin,
who came to study under him for a time at Tours, and who subsequently
in his school at Fulda, continued the work of
Alcuin at Aachen and Tours.
The
development of the Palace School, however, important as it was, was only a part
of the broad educational plans of Charlemagne. For the diffusion of
learning, other educational centers had to be
established throughout the kingdom, and for this, in an age when education was so largely, under
the control of the Church, it was essential that
the clergy should be a body of educated men. With this object
in view, a series of decrees or capitulars were issued in the name of the
Emperor, which enjoined upon all clerics, secular as well as
regular, under penalty of suspension deprivation of office,
the ability to read and write and the possession of the knowledge requisite for the
intelligent performance of the duties of the clerical state. Reading-schools
were to be established for the benefit of candidates for the priesthood, and bishops were required to
examine their clergy from time to time, to
ascertain the degree of their compliance with these educational laws. A scheme for
universal elementary education was also projected. A
capitular of the year 802 enjoined that "everyone should send his son to
study letters, and that the child should remain at school with all diligence
until he should become well instructed in learning" (West, 54). Following
the decrees of the Council of Vaison, a primary school was to be established
in every town and village to be taught by the priests gratuitously. It is
impossible to say to what extent Alcuin deserves credit for the organization of
the vast educational system which was thus
set up, comprising a central higher institution, the Palace School, a number of
subordinate schools of the liberal arts
scattered throughout the country, and schools for the common people
in every city and village. His hand is nowhere visible in the series of
legislative enactments referred to; but there can be no doubt that he had much to do
with the instigation, if not with the framing, of these laws. "The
voice", Gaskoin aptly says, "is the voice of Charles, but the hand is
the hand of Alcuin". It was with Alcuin, too, and his pupils that the
responsibility rested for carrying out the legislation. True, the laws were only imperfectly
carried into effect; the measures planned and partially put into practice for
the enlightenment of the people did not meet with complete success; the
movement for the revival and diffusion of learning throughout the Empire did
not last. Yet much was accomplished that did endure. The accumulated wisdom or
the past, which was in danger of perishing, was preserved, and when the greater
and more permanent renaissance of learning came, several centuries later, when
the light began to pierce through the storm-clouds of feudal strife and anarchy, the foundations laid
in the eighth century were still there, ready to receive the weight of the
higher learning which the scholars of the new revival should build up"
(Gaskoin, 209). Alcuin's poems range from brief, epigrammatic verses, addressed
to his friends, or intended as inscriptions for books, churches, altars, etc., to
lengthy metrical histories of biblical and ecclesiastical events. His verses
seldom rise to the level of real poetry, and, like most of the work of the
poets of the period, they often fail to conform to the rules for quantity, just
as his prose, though simple and vigorous, shows here and there a seeming
disregard for the accepted canons of syntax. His principal metrical work, the
"Poem on the Saints of the Church at York", consists of 1657
hexameter lines and is really a history of that Church.
Alcuin as a theologian
Alcuin's
work as a theologian may be classed as exegetical or biblical, moral,
and dogmatic. Here again the characteristic that has been noted in his educational work is conspicuous it
is that of conservation rather than originality. His nine Scriptural
commentaries — on Genesis, The Psalms, The Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes,
Hebrew Names, St. John's Gospel, the Epistles to Titus, Philemon, and the
Hebrews, The Sayings of St. Paul, and the Apocalypse — consist mostly of
sentences taken from the Fathers, the idea, apparently, being to
collect into convenient form the observations on the more important Scriptural
passages of the best commentators who had preceded him. A more important
Biblical undertaking by Alcuin was the revision of the text of the Latin Vulgate. At the beginning of
the ninth century, this version had displaced in France, as elsewhere
throughout the Western
Church,
the Old Itala (Vetus Itala)
and other Latin versions of the Bible; but the Vulgate, as it existed, showed
many variants from the original of St. Jerome. Uniformity in the sacred text was in fact, unknown. Every church and monastery had its own accepted
readings, and varying texts were often to be found in the Bibles used in the
same house. Other scholars besides Alcuin were engaged in the task of
endeavouring to remedy this condition. Theodulph of Orléans produced a revised
text of the Vulgate which has survived in
the "Codex Memmianus". The original work of Alcuin has not come down
to us, the carelessness of copyists and the extensive usage to which it
attained having led to numberless, though for the most part unimportant
variations from the standard he sought to fix. In his letters he simply
mentions the fact that he is engaged, by the order of Charlemagne, "in emendatione Veteris Novique
Testamenti" (Ep., 136). Four Bibles are shown by the
dedicatory poems affixed to them to have been prepared by him, or under his
direction at Tours, probably during the
years 799-801. In the opinion of Berger the "Tours Bibles" all
represent in a greater or less degree, notwithstanding their variations in
detail, the original Alcuinian text (Hist. de la vulg., 242). Whatever the
exact changes made by Alcuin in the Bible text may have been, the known temper of the
man, no less than the limits of the scholarship of the age, makes it certain that
these changes were not of a far-reaching kind. The idea being, however, to
reproduce the genuine text of St. Jerome, so far as possible,
and to correct the gross blunders which disfigured the Sacred writings, the
Biblical work of Alcuin was, from this point of view, important. Of the three
brief moral treatises Alcuin has left us, two, "De virtutibus et vitiis",
and "De animae ratione", are largely abridgments of the writing of St. Augustine on the same subjects,
while the third, "On the Confession of Sins", is a concise exposition
of the nature of confession, addressed to the monks of St. Martin of Tours. Closely allied to his
moral writings in spirit and purpose are his sketches of the lives of St. Martin of Tours, St. Vedast, St.
Riquier, and St.
Willibrord,
the last being a biography of considerable length.
It
is upon his dogmatic writings that the fame of Alcuin as a theologian principally rests.
Against the Adoptionist heresy he stood forth as the
foremost champion of the Church. It is a proof of his power of
penetration — a quality of mind which some historians appear to deny him
altogether — that he so clearly perceived the essentially heretical attitude of Felix and
Elipandus toward the Christological question, an attitude
whose heterodoxy was shrouded perhaps
even from their own eyes in the beginning, by the specious distinction between
natural and adoptive sonship; and it was a worthy tribute to the range of his
patristic scholarship when Felix, the chief intellectual defender of Adoptionism, after the disputation
with Alcuin at Aachen, acknowledged the error of his position. The
condemnation of the rising heresy by the Synod of Regensburg (Ratisbon), in 792, having failed
to check its spread, another and a larger synod, composed of representatives of
the Churches of France, Italy, Britain, and Galicia,
was convened at Frankfort by the order of
Charles, in 794. Alcuin was present at this meeting and no doubt took a
prominent part in the discussions and in the drawing up of the "Epistola
Synodica", although, with characteristic modesty, he furnishes no evidence
of the fact in his letters. Following up the work of the Synod, he addressed to
Felix, for whom he had formerly entertained high esteem, a touching letter of
admonition and exhortation. After his transfer to Tours, in 796, he received
from Felix a reply which showed that something more than friendly entreaty
would be needed to stay the progress of the heresy. He had already drawn
up a small treatise consisting mainly of patristic quotations, against the
teaching of the heretics, under the title
"Liber Albini contra haeresim Felicis", and he now undertook a larger
and more thorough discussion of the theological questions involved.
This work, in seven books, "Libri VII adversus Felicem", was a
refutation of the position of the Adoptionists, rather than an exposition of Catholic doctrine, and hence followed
the lines of their arguments, instead of a strictly logical order of development.
Alcuin urged against the Adoptionists the universal testimony of the Fathers,
the inconsistencies involved in the doctrine itself, its logical relation to Nestorianism, and the rationalistic spirit which was
forever prompting to just such attempted human explanations of the unsearchable
mysteries of faith. In the spring of 799
a disputation took place between Alcuin and Felix in the royal palace at Aachen, which ended by Felix
acknowledging his errors and accepting the
teachings of the Church. Felix subsequently
paid a friendly visit to Alcuin at Tours. Having sought in vain
to bring about the submission of Elipandus, Alcuin drew up another treatise
entitled "Adversus Elipandum Libri IV", entrusting it for circulation
to the commissioners whom Charlemagne was sending to Spain. In 802 he sent to the
emperor the last, and perhaps the most important, of his theological treatises, the
"Libellus de Sancta Trinitate", a work which is uncontroversial in
form, although probably suggested to him during the discussions with the
Adoptionists. The treatise contains a brief appendix entitled "De
Trinitate ad Fridegisum quaestiones XXVIII". The book is a compendium of Catholic doctrine concerning the Holy Trinity, St. Augustine's
treatise on the subject being kept steadily in view. It is uncertain to what
extent Alcuin shared in the attitude of remonstrance assumed by the Frankish Church, at the
instance of Charlemagne, towards the badly
translated and ill understood decrees of the second Council of Nicaea, held in
787. The style of the "Libri
Carolini"
which condemn, in the name of the King, the decrees of the Council, favours the
assumption that Alcuin had at least no direct part in the composition of the
work.
Alcuin as a liturgist
Besides
his justly merited fame as an educator and a theologian, Alcuin has the honour of having been the
principle agent in the great work of liturgical reform accomplished by
the authority of Charlemagne. At the accession of Charles the Gallican rite
prevailed in France, but it was so
modified by local customs and traditions as to constitute a serious obstacle to
complete ecclesiastical unity. It was the
purpose of the King to substitute the Roman rite in place of the Gallican, or
at least to bring about such a revision of the latter as to make it
substantially one with the Roman. The strong leaning of Alcuin towards the
traditions of the Roman
Church,
combined with his conservative character and the universal authority of his
name, qualified him for the accomplishment of a change which the royal
authority in itself was powerless to effect. The first of Alcuin's liturgical works appears to have
been a Homiliary, or collection of sermons in Latin for the use of priests. The Homiliary which
was printed under his name in the fifteenth century was by a different hand,
although it is probable, its Dom Morin contends, that a recently discovered manuscript of the twelfth century
contains the genuine Alcuinian sermons. Another liturgical work of Alcuin
consists of a collection of the Epistles to be read on Sundays and holy-days
throughout the year, and bears the name, "Comes ab Albino ex Caroli imp.
praecepto emendatus". As, previous to his time, the portions of Scripture
to be read at Mass were often merely indicated on the margins of the Bibles
used, the "Comes" commended itself by its convenience, and as he followed
Roman usage here also, the result was another advance in the way of conformity
to the Roman liturgy. The work of Alcuin which had the greatest and most
lasting influence in this direction, however, was the Sacramentary, or Missal which he compiled,
using the Gregorian Sacramentary as a basis, and to this adding a supplement of
other liturgical sources. Prescribed as
the official Mass-book for the Frankish Church, Alcuin's Missal soon came to be
commonly used throughout Europe and was largely
instrumental in bringing about uniformity in respect to the liturgy of the Mass
in the whole Western
Church.
Other liturgical productions of Alcuin
were a collection of votive Masses, drawn up for the monks of Fulda, a treatise called
"De psalmorum usu", a breviary for laymen, and a brief
explanation of the ceremonies of Baptism.
A
complete edition of Alcuin's works, with the exception of some of his Epistles,
is to be found in Migne, comprising volumes
100-101 of the "Patrologia Latina". The text of the Migne edition was first
published by Froben, Abbot of St. Emmeran, at Ratisbon, in 1777, a previous
and less complete edition having been published by Duchesne at Paris, in 1617. A critically
accurate edition of the "Epistles" of Alcuin, together with his poem,
"On the Saints of the Church at York", his "Life of St. Willibrord and the "Life of
Alcuin", composed about 829, is found in the fourth volume of the
"Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum", under the title "Monumenta
Alcuiniana" edited by Jaffé, Wattenbach, and Duemmler (Berlin, 1873). This
edition contains 293 of Alcuin's Epistles, against the 230 in Migne.
No comments:
Post a Comment